


Brief Glimpses Into a Wasteland Relationship

by crustBandit



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-16 12:21:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 16,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21507853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crustBandit/pseuds/crustBandit
Summary: Blue's angry and traumatized and conflicted and Piper... well, Piper isn't quite sure what do to with the new feelings she finds bubbling to the surface as she helps her new friend navigate her way through the desiccated husk of the city she once knew.
Relationships: Female Sole Survivor/Piper Wright
Comments: 67
Kudos: 120





	1. This Must Be My Exit

* * *

Piper couldn’t quite decide what to make of Blue. 

For one, the vault dweller was one of the most capable women she’d ever met and was weirdly suited to life in the Commonwealth despite spending the last 200 years as a popsicle. The few months they’d spent traveling together had proven that much. 

It wasn’t just her skill with a pistol (which was, admittedly, even better than Piper’s own steady hand). Maybe it was the way she carried herself, her strangely unwavering charm and confidence, how she could bargain with anyone or talk her way out of the hairiest of situations. 

Or possibly it was how uniquely simpatico they’d been since day one. They moved through Boston like shadows, communicating with a look: a cock of the head, the quirk of an eyebrow. They  _understood_ each other in a way that had taken Piper years to achieve with others. 

Who was she kidding, she’d never  _actually_ achieved that with someone else. 

She could also lay her thoughts bare in those late night conversations they had, camped out in the corners of the moldering buildings of Boston. And Blue could  _meet her_ in them, unflinchingly. In the past, Piper always felt like she just  _shared too much_ , but with Blue… there was no such thing as oversharing with Blue. 

When she pressed herself, dug deep into her feelings about the vault dweller, it was really the juxtaposition of all of these amazing qualities against Blue’s anger that threw her. There was no escaping the fact that Blue dealt with her trauma through anger. 

It wasn’t always there, which was the surprising thing. It would come out when Piper least expected it, catching her off guard. Ninety-five percent of the time, Blue was the companion, no  _friend,_ she could easily predict. But then they’d be in combat and she’d see Blue turn  _black,_ raging against the enemies around them, standing breathless and brutal and bloodied as the smoke of the scuffle cleared.

And sometimes Blue would just retreat from her. The closeness between them would become distance and Piper was never sure how to reach her in those moments so she usually just gave her the silence she needed. So the hours would pass and Blue would eventually  _come back_ to her. 

They were sitting on stools at the Third Rail nursing Gwinette Stouts while Dr. Amari tried to hack her way into the only remnants of the not-so-dearly departed Kellogg in the Memory Den. They were in a holding pattern: not knowing if it would take her hours or days or weeks to access the memories they needed. Magnolia crooned a classic from the small stage in the background while Blue stared vacantly at her bottle, peeling the label off with shaky fingers, chewing on her lower lip. 

Piper found herself doing what she always did in these moments: stealing surreptitious glances and trying to puzzle together Blue’s thoughts. It  _hurt_ to see Blue hurting and Piper wanted to fix it. 

“You know there’s an ancient myth that if you can’t peel the whole label off your bottle in one try you’re a virgin,” Piper teased. 

“Pipes, I think the situation we’re in is the ultimate evidence of my  _very_ lost virginity,” Blue snorted. 

“I dunno, Blue. The facts don’t lie.”

“OK, smartass.” Blue fell quiet, contemplating her bottle while Piper contemplated her. Piper couldn’t remember Blue ever calling her ‘Pipes’ before. She liked it: the familiarity it showed, the closeness it conveyed in this moment that otherwise felt distant. She couldn’t help the smile that crawled across her lips as she dropped her gaze.

“What are you smiling about, papergirl?”

“Nothing… I just didn’t realize we had pet names for each other,” Piper said as she took a swill from her beer. Blue looked up at that, raising her eyebrows and cocking her head to the side. “Ok, ok, I know I’ve basically never referred to you by your real name, but come on! You _are_ Blue. You can’t tell me it doesn’t fit.”

“New name for a new life, I suppose,” Blue said, picking at her bottle again, retreating back into herself.

_Shit._

“Fuck, Blue, I’m sorry, I…” Piper began, but Blue interrupted.

“Do you want to get drunk? Like proper drunk?” 

Piper considered her for a second. It probably wasn’t the  _best_ choice for the situation, but fuck it, they weren’t perfect and waiting wasn’t going to get any easier. She smiled a crooked little smile.

* * *

“So there I was,” Piper slurred, several hours later. “No sooner had I shut the door behind me that I felt something _just_ wasn’t right. Like this oily feeling in my stomach. And then I remembered that shady guy sitting next to me at the Dugout and I just knew. I fucking _knew_ I’d been poisoned again. He had to be from that caravan ring I’d blown the lid on the week before. So I did what any sane person would do in that situation.”

“Oh yeah?” Blue laughed. “What does a _sane_ person do in that situation?”

“I very demurely opened the door, took a step outside, and vomited in the street.”

“And by that you mean you panicked, ran outside, and retched in the middle of the market.”

“Who’s telling the story here, Blue?”

“I thought you were all about the truth, Piper!” Blue smiled a stupid little triumphant smile that Piper would have  _hated_ on anyone else. She gave an exasperated sigh and rolled her eyes.

“Fine,” she said, trying to hide her smile. “I’ll concede that your version of events is _slightly_ more accurate than mine.”

Blue smiled and signaled the barkeep for another round as Magnolia wandered up next to her. 

“Excuse me, miss,” Blue began unsteadily as she noticed the singer next to her.

“What is it, sweetheart? Didn’t like the songs?” the singer asked.

“Real great set this evening, ma’am… of songs that is,” Piper interrupted, making Blue snort into the new bottle she’d just picked up, distracting her from whatever she had planned to say. 

“I’d suggest you gals switch to water and sleep this off,” Magnolia replied as Piper punched Blue’s shoulder. “Not that I don’t appreciate the attention.” She winked at Piper and made her way back to the stage. 

Piper’s cheeks burned bright red under her freckles as she grinned at the singer’s back.

“Well, would you look at that,” Blue teased. 

“Shut up,” Piper said, averting her eyes. They sipped their beers silently for a couple of seconds before Blue worked out what she wanted to say.

“I just, I guess I didn’t realize… you know,” she finally shared, raising her eyebrows and nodding her head.

“Are we five?” Piper chuckled. “Are your pre-war mores and taboos choking you up?”

“I guess I didn’t realize you  _liked_ women,” Blue said.

“I don’t discriminate,” Piper replied simply. A moment passed here, Blue looking her hard in the eyes with a mysterious smile, Piper wishing once again she could figure out what exactly was happening in her friend’s mind. In time, Piper would come to recognize this moment for what it really was, but for now, all she could do was smile back, her chest feeling tight with a fuzzy happiness she hadn’t felt in god knew how long.

Blue reached up to push back the flop of hair that had fallen across her face and Piper found herself really  _looking at_ those fingers. They were long with little scars and cuts running up and down them, one fingernail black and purple from where Blue had smashed it under the piece of metal they had been trying to move a few days previously. 

_So very true-Blue of her._

Her eyes traced the line from her fingers, down to the curve of Blue’s jaw and the scar that curled its way from her chin over her lips. 

_Whew, did it just get hot in here?_ She joked to herself, wondering exactly why she’d never really noticed how much that scar lent a  _certain_ quality to Blue’s face. 

But  _that_ was a really bad direction to let her thoughts wander, even if she was drunk. 

“I think,” Piper started, her eyes flicking back to her friend’s. “That Magnolia’s right. We need water and a few hours to sleep this off.” 

Blue just smiled a lazy, drunken grin at her.

“I could do with some sleep.”

* * *

Ultimately, the Rexford had proven to be a surprisingly cache hotel at one-thirty in the morning on a Thursday night, Piper reflected later as she lay on her back in the bed next to Blue.

She felt distinctly out of sorts.  _Of course,_ they’d end up having to share a bed after one fleeting moment of attraction on Piper’s part. And now here she was: drunk and actively trying to ignore the little thoughts that had begun to surface in the back of her brain.

_Life is not a romance holotape, Piper,_ she told herself.

A hazy, yellow light filtered in through the grimy window, casting Blue’s profile in hard relief as Piper snuck a glance to see if her friend was still asleep. She saw Blue’s chest slowly rising and falling, heard the quiet sounds of her breath coming in and out of her nose. For a moment, she lost herself in watching that little process that sustained life. 

_Snap out of it, Wright._ She told herself.  _Whatever you’re thinking, whatever little scenarios you’re playing out in your mind need to be locked down right now. There are no happy endings down these alleys._

The logical side of her brain was right. This was uncharted territory and these sorts of thoughts were nothing but inconvenient. Worse, this sort of distraction could get them both killed out there. 

_Nothing but inconvenient._

Piper rolled over to her side, facing the wall now. Life already had enough complications without adding in non-platonic feelings for a newly widowed 200-year-old mom who was doing her damnedest just to get her son back.

* * *

Piper’s first thought when she returned to consciousness the next morning was:

_Why doesn’t this fucking hotel have curtains?_

The second was:

_That is not my hand on my stomach._

She slowly began to notice the warmth pressing against her back, the soft puff of sleepy breath against her neck, the weight of Blue’s arm wrapped around her. 

_Universe, you are killing me here!_ Piper mentally cursed. 

She was torn between several very strong emotions at this point. _Obviously_ , she was kind of _pleased_ with how this situation was playing out. When was the last time she’d even been held like this? Sure, there had been _encounters_ with the traders or caravaners that made their way through the city from time to time. But those were furtive, purpose-driven situations that ended with a brief orgasm, a firm handshake, and an empty bed. Transactional (without the transaction, _thank you very much_ ).

_This,_ this sort of thing was on a level of intimacy that she’d achieved with fewer people than she could count on one hand. She  _wanted_ to stay there, pretend to still be sleeping, enjoy this feeling of closeness, but she couldn’t escape the feeling that doing that wasn’t quite fair to Blue. Blue definitely wasn’t feeling the things Piper was in this moment. She was sleeping. She was probably dreaming of her  _dead husband_ , for christ’s sake _._

As she lay there, trying to piece through the best way to wake Blue without making everything into the awkward mess she was so talented at producing, she felt a big exhale behind her, a gentle shift in the blankets, and Blue’s face buying deeper into her back.

“Why doesn’t this hotel have any fucking curtains,” Blue grumbled.

Piper couldn’t help but smile.

“My thoughts exactly,” she replied. 

They lay there for another few moments, Blue obviously trying to hold onto the consciousness she’d just achieved. Eventually, she shifted, propping herself up on one elbow and looking down at Piper.

“I should have warned you that I’m a spooner,” she said sleepily, one hand rubbing her eyes. “It’s been that way since I was a kid.”

“It’s fine,” Piper replied, hoping she sounded like a normal human being. “Everyone likes a good cuddle now and then.”

“So it was good for you, too?” Blue teased.

“You  _insufferable_ smartass,” Piper said as she rolled onto her back, playfully punching Blue’s shoulder. Blue rolled onto her own, laughing quietly to herself.


	2. Face Like Thunder

It turned out that Dr. Amari wasn’t capable of hacking Kellogg’s memories on her own, they had found out later that morning as they met with the Memory Den’s resident specialist. Gaining access was a complicated process that involved a decidedly slapdash approach of installing Kellogg’s cybernetic brain augmenter  _into_ Nick’s head then having Blue run through the string of memories from Kellogg’s point of view. 

“I hear what you’re saying Dr. Amari, but don’t you think it’s a  _bad idea_ to have Blue experience all of this again?”

“Unfortunately we don’t have a choice, Ms. Wright,” the doctor replied. “This is the only way I can come up with for properly accessing the data. If we’re proceeding down this path, we have to use this method. “ 

“Then let me do it, for christ’s sake,” Piper insisted, turning to Blue, who was standing in the corner with her arms wrapped around herself.

“It’s got to be me, Pipes,” she replied, sadly.

Blue had sat in the chair then, and Piper had watched on the fuzzy screen as she relived the artificially extended life of Conrad Kellogg. She heard Blue’s muffled cries for help in the background of a memory as an Institute scientist pulled Shaun from Nate’s arms, as Kellogg fired one round into his chest. She saw a ten year old Shaun playing on the floor of Kellogg’s ratty house in Diamond City, disappearing in a flash of blue light, confirming that, yes: the Institute had him locked away, and yes: Blue had missed out on the first ten years of her son’s life.

In all honesty, it was far worse than she’d thought it would be. 

When Blue came out of it she just  _sat there,_ shoulders slumped, her face blank. For a moment Piper worried they’d fried her brain but then Blue reached up and ripped the electrodes from her head, tossing the wires away in disgust. Her face dropped defeatedly into her palms, her breath coming heavy and hot and angry in her chest. 

No one in the room quite knew what to do. Dr. Amari stood wide-eyed, looking from Nick to Piper in a pleading way before quietly excusing herself. Soon after, Nick had risen, placed a hand on Blue’s shoulder, then left with a gentle “Hang tough, kiddo.”

_It would almost be better if she were sobbing,_ Piper thought as she stood alone with her.  _That I would know how to handle._

But Blue just continued to sit there silently, her face in her hands.

Finally, Piper decided she had to do  _something:_ they couldn’t just stay this way forever. She took the few steps across the room, closing the distance between them, placing a hand under Blue’s chin and gently turning her face up to look at her. 

“Let’s get out of here,” she said, taking one of her hands and  _pulling_ her to her feet, leading her through the electric silence of the Memory Den, past the crowd cheering Hancock’s rousing speech from the balcony of the Old State House, up the stairs to their little room in the Rexford. 

She sat Blue down on the bed and gently shut the door, leaning against it as she watched her friend place her head in her hands again. Words had always been Piper’s strong suit, but now… now nothing came to her. Blue didn’t need a sarcastic comment or gentle quip to shake her out of this. 

The light from the windows began to fade as Piper stepped forward, coming to her knees in front of the broken woman. She delicately pushed Blue’s hands out of the way, placing her own on each side of her face. 

She looked her firmly in the eyes, trying desperately to convey everything she was thinking:

_We’ll get him back. We’ll bring them down. I promise you._

Blue held her gaze for those long moments, her breath still coming hard in her chest, before nodding slightly like she  _got_ everything Piper was trying to tell her. Piper nodded back and leaned their foreheads together.

They stayed that way long after Piper’s knees began to hurt, long after her feet fell asleep and went numb, long after the light from the room faded, until Blue’s breath came quieter and softer. 

Then Piper sat back onto her heels, separating from the small point of contact they’d shared. Blue gazed sadly down at her as Piper began unlacing the vault dweller’s heavy boots. In silence, she slipped off one, then the other, placing them at the foot of the bed. 

Blue lay down as Piper stood, unbuttoning her trench coat and slipping it from her arms, tossing it onto the shabby chair in the corner. She walked around to the other side of the bed, lowering herself onto her side on the mattress as Blue turned her head, catching her gaze in that yellow light that Piper had watched her in the night before.

They lay there, looking at each other in the quiet of the room as Blue seemed to come to some sort of decision. Purposefully, she pulled the reporter closer to her, turning onto her side and burying her face in the crook of Piper’s neck. 

Soon, their breath fell even and they slept.

* * *

Piper cursed loudly at her terminal as she scrapped the article she’d been working on. It was just  _bad writing_ and she wasn’t going to try to fool herself into thinking otherwise.

She’d been parked in front of the ancient thing all morning, trying her best to keep her thoughts away from Blue and whatever the hell was happening to her and Nick as they made their way across the Glowing Sea. 

It had been eight days since she’d left Piper behind, bringing Nick along because  _radiation can’t hurt him_ . And sure, Piper couldn’t argue with that reasoning, but sitting around in Diamond City wondering if something had gone wrong and if it  _had_ , how long, if ever, it would be before she knew was eating away at her.

_Eight days._

She pulled open her top desk drawer and grabbed the pack of emergency cigarettes she kept squirreled away there. She wasn’t a smoker,  _per se_ , but there was something about the self-destructive nature of the practice that appealed to her in times when she couldn’t get her brain to  _shut the fuck up._ She lit the tip of the ancient cigarette and breathed in deeply, holding the smoke in her lungs for a moment before exhaling through her nose.

_It’s not just the fact that Blue could be dead or dying that’s driving you crazy._

That night in Goodneighbor had marked a subtle shift in the dynamic of their relationship, one that Piper could not help overanalyzing. 

The biggest change was  _obvious_ . 

They’d arrived back in Diamond City the next day after an uneventful journey through the Boston streets. Nat had excitedly greeted them from her soap box, telling them people  _still_ came by asking for copies of the Woman Out of Time edition of the Publick. 

There was no denying that Nat found Blue to be the most interesting thing that had ever come through the Great Green Jewel and Blue seemed to reciprocate those warm feelings, always chatting with her, matching her excitement while she explained how something on her pipboy worked or regaled her with a (highly censored) version of one of their latest adventures. 

It had been a quiet night: Nat read an issue of Grognak the Barbarian for the umpteenth time while Piper sorted through her most recent collection of notes and Blue fiddled with some tweak she was trying to make to her Pipboy. Nothing _seemed_ particularly different until after Piper had said a simple “goodnight” to Blue and headed over to her tiny bedroom, leaving Blue to take up her usual bed on the couch. It wasn’t until after Piper had been lying in bed for a while, the soft light coming off the bare bulb on her night stand as she stared up at the ceiling. 

The knock on her door had been so soft that she wasn’t even sure she’d really heard it until the second one came. When she opened the door, Blue stood there in the old t-shirt and too short sweat pants she’d borrowed from Piper months ago on the first night they met. 

“Hey,” she said, shyly.

“Hey,” Piper had replied, a little surprised. 

They stood for a few moments then, Blue shifting nervously before Piper finally put together what was happening and said, “You wanna come in?” 

Blue just nodded her answer and quietly made her way across the room. 

When they lay in bed, Blue didn’t immediate pull Piper to her the way she had the night before. There was a nervousness in the way she lay on her back, not touching Piper, creating this  _respectful_ space between the two of them. 

“Night, Blue,” Piper had said as she switched off the light, laying on her side, facing the wall.

“Night, Pipes,” had come Blue’s quiet reply. 

That had happened _every_ night until Blue left for the Glowing Sea. Five nights of performatory goodnights followed by gentle knocks on the door an hour or so later; of falling asleep on separate sides of the bed but waking up with Blue pressed firmly against her back, one arm snaked beneath Piper’s pillow and the other resting softly on her stomach; of Blue’s characteristic way of burrowing her face into the back of Piper’s neck in her sleep; of the tight mixture of excitement and wanting and happiness and dread in Piper’s stomach when she did. 

The other changes were less obvious: Blue’s soft hand on Piper’s back as she scooted past her in the kitchen, the way she would come up behind her and  _peek_ at whatever Piper was working on, the gentleness with which Blue had told her she wasn’t bringing her along on the next leg of her search for Shaun. 

And yeah, that had stung briefly, but ultimately she knew she wasn’t invited along because Blue cared about her. 

And maybe that was the thing that was so crazy-making: the fact that she knew Blue cared about her but didn’t know  _in what way._

If you took away the fact that Blue’s husband had just been  _murdered in front of her_ a few months ago, that her son had been kidnapped by a shady cabal of highly sophisticated androids, and that she suddenly found herself 200 years into a future that was decidedly  _bleak_ , then yeah, Piper would probably think that all of this meant she was interested in being something more than friends.

_Jesus, Piper, those aren’t just things you can take away._

When she really thought about it, weighed all of those details against the facts, she almost always came to the same conclusion: Blue had found herself desperate and alone in a strange world and Piper was the one person she’d really been able to count on. Anyone in that situation would need closeness and comfort from a person they trusted. 

But every time she arrived there, she inevitably circled back and poured over the details again and again and again. 

Like on the morning Blue left and they had stood outside the door, the hush of the early hours around them. Piper taller for once since she stood on the front step. 

“I could get used to this, you know,” she’d said, lording her newfound height over her friend. She was trying to stay positive, put on a brave face, not think about the fact she may never see Blue again. 

“What, saying goodbye to me?” Blue teased, looking up at her, kicking up little motes of dust in the infield. 

“You know what I mean, smartass.” 

Usually, this would be when she’d punch Blue playfully, but something stopped her this time. Instead, she reached out and placed both hands on her shoulders. 

“You better come back,” she said, looking Blue directly in the eyes. “Don’t make me march out there and drag your ass back here.”

Blue didn’t respond immediately. She sort of just  _stood_ there, looking earnestly back up at Piper for a bit before taking a step forward and placing her hands on either side of her face. She pulled Piper’s forehead gently down to hers, holding her there for a few moments. 

There’d been a rapid succession of events then: Percy shouted his standard “Diamond City Surplus!” and Blue had stepped back, hitching her pack onto her shoulders and saying a quiet “see you soon, Pipes,” before heading toward the gate to meet Nick. 

“Yeah, you better!” Piper shouted after her. 

And then she was gone.

_Eight days._


	3. Heartbeats

It turned out to be a total of 11 days before Blue showed up in Diamond City again. 

Piper had slept badly the night before, having tossed and turned until the early hours of the morning. She just hadn’t been able to get  _comfortable._ And while she did eventually drift off, those few hours of unconsciousness weren’t nearly enough to make up for all of the fitful hours of lying awake.

So her mood suffered, which meant her  _writing_ had suffered, which made her mood even worse and by eleven that morning she was ready to call it quits. She pushed herself away from her terminal while she reached her arms out behind her and popped her neck, a satisfying tingle running down her spine.

Piper tried very hard to  _not_ think about the very specific way Blue always popped her neck as she stood up from the bed they shared or the satisfied sound she made as she stretched her arms over her head or the way she tucked her sleep-mussed hair behind her ear. 

She specifically _did not_ want to think about Blue because when she _did_ the little weight she’d been carrying around in the pit of her stomach suddenly became much heavier and she couldn’t help but think something had to be wrong for this much time to go by without so much as a rumor of the vault dweller. 

She grabbed her jacket from its hook near the door and made her way outside and through the marketplace to one of the stools in front of Takahashi at the noodle stand.

_Filling the hole in my life with greasy noodles,_ she thought to herself.

“ _Nan-ni shimasho-ka,”_ the robot asked her from his automated mis-en-place.

“I’m fine, Takahashi, thanks for asking,” she joked. “How are you?”

“ _Nan-ni shimasho-ka,”_ the robot replied. 

“You don’t say?” Piper said with mock surprise. 

“I never thought I’d come home to find Piper Wright, defender of the everyman, bullying a simple robot who just wants to pursue his predetermined love of noodle slinging ,” came a voice behind her as a heavy pack dropped to the ground near her feet.

Piper spun on her stool, her breath doing an annoying little hitching thing in her chest as she caught sight of her friend alive and whole and glowing with what had to be either radiation dust or pride. 

And  _here_ .  _Finally._

She stood from the her stool, taking the few steps to close the distance between them. 

Admittedly, their bodies collided a bit harder than she had intended as she threw her arms around her friend’s neck and pulled her close, Blue having to take a tiny half-step back to keep the momentum from bringing them to the ground but squeezing her back just as hard. The reporter stood on her tiptoes, her face buried where Blue’s shoulder met her neck. She could feel Blue’s hands on her lower back, strong and warm even through the leather of her jacket. It was a feeling that was  _cracking with energuy,_ though Piper couldn’t say if that was because Blue was  _actually_ slightly irradiated. Or maybe it was the slightly tipsy-feeling elation at realizing they’d never actually  _done this._

Sure, they’d touched each other (Blue had held her every night for nearly a week for christ’s sake) but this… this physical closeness that was so purposeful and earnest and _open…_ this was new. 

“You  _incredible_ idiot,” Piper whispered. 

She felt Blue relax into her like she was letting go of a thousand pounds of stress and anxiety and constant vigilance that had been strung across her shoulders for the last week and a half. 

“God, I missed you, Pipes,” Blue whispered back.

* * *

They lay in bed together the night that Blue had returned. Piper forsaking any pretense this time, being bold and forward and taking what she wanted and making the first move because  _damn_ she needed that closeness and was impatient for it. Nat had said goodnight, retreated to her nook, and Piper had grabbed Blue's hand, pulling her up the stairs, Blue's goofy grin staying plastered on her face the entire time. And sure, maybe Piper didn't take _everything_ she wanted as they stretched out on the bed. That would have probably involved a lot more nudity. But as she curled into Blue’s side, her head tucked under the vault dweller's chin, she realized just how much this moment out-ranked any of those moments that had ended in sex. 

For once, Piper’s mind was quiet: not trying to read into what it meant that she wanted this so desperately (or that Blue had gone along with it so willingly), not analyzing the way Blue’s hand had come to rest on top of the one she’d placed on Blue’s stomach. It _felt good_ and anything besides that fact could be worried about later. 

“ _Fuck,_ Blue, I really thought you were dead,” Piper finally admitted into the darkness. 

“I’d be lying if I didn’t say there were some near misses,” she replied, the calloused tip of her middle finger moving in a little circular pattern on Piper’s knuckle. “Nick was a different story, though. I swear it was like all of that radiation recharged his batteries.”

“I think the real reason was that he just  _really_ needed a break from the constant grind of PI work.”

“I don’t know, Wright. It seems like science is on my side here.”

“I’ll give you that. You have the first hand experience. I wasn’t there to witness the restorative effects of background radiation on pre-war synths.” 

Blue’s finger paused on top of Piper’s hand. She felt the breath beneath her come just a little bit faster before Blue finally took a sharp inhale and replied.

“I wanted you there,” her voice was shaky as she said it. “Nick and I came over that last hill and finally got a view of the Sea and it _really_ hit me that _this_ was where the bomb had dropped. _This_ was what lead to all of the terrible shit that’s happened to my family in these last few months. And there I was having to make my way across all of it, doped up on Rad-X with barely any hope that I’d actually come out the other side. Jesus, I wanted you there so badly, Piper.”

She felt, rather than heard, Blue begin to cry. The normally steady breath catching in little hiccoughs in the chest under her ear. Piper scooted up the bed a bit so they could face each other and placed her hand on Blue’s cheek, wiping away tears with her thumb. 

“It was really hard to not be able to be there for you. Like, surprisingly hard,” she admitted. 

Blue let out a shaky sigh.

“I just… I didn’t want to force you into danger… or I don’t know… drag you into this more…”

Piper pressed her forehead into Blue’s in what had become a familiar position for them. 

“I am  _in this_ , Blue. I have been since you showed up in that stupid vault suit needing a place to crash. And I’m a tough girl. If you want me there, just  _tell_ me. I’ll let you know when we reach my boundaries.”

Blue scooted down until her face was buried in the nape of Piper’s neck, still shaking with tears. 

“Yeah…” she snuffled eventually. “Yeah, I do want you, Piper.”

Piper felt a twinge of guilt as her heart lifted with those words: guilt that she felt something close to happiness while Blue felt so miserable. 

“Well, then you’ve got me,” Piper whispered.

Piper tried to fall back into that comfortable silence they’d shared before: the one where her brain just  _shut up_ and took the situation for what it was. But that wasn’t something she could do now.

_All of the terrible shit that’s happened to my family in these last few months._

That simple statement had driven home the basic truth of the situation: Blue was still very much in the process of grieving for her husband, for the years she lost with her son, for the life she  _should_ have lived out 200 years ago. And Piper even thinking about asking for anything more than friendship right now was just so _fucking unfair_ .


	4. Make You Better

“Close one, Blue,” Piper breathed in relief as she searched the body of the mutant suicider that had been charging her down only a few seconds before. 

Piper had heard the telltale clicking that signaled the mutant’s approach just a bit too late. She’d turned to look over her shoulder and the giant green bastard had been just a few paces away from her. 

But Blue, whose ears were somehow better attuned to the wasteland’s soundscape than the lifetime native’s, had caught on faster than the reporter. Just as a final  _well, fuck this is it_ was crossing Piper’s mind, Blue had fired one decisive round from the six-shooter in her hand and blown the mutant’s head into an irradiated pink mist. 

_Kellogg’s .44,_ Piper now realized. 

“Any time,” Blue said as she gave a little mock salute and pretended to blow smoke from the barrel. “I’m guessing there are more hiding out inside CIT. Let’s hope we can steer clear.” 

She fiddled with the knob on her Pipboy as she spoke, adjusting the frequency of the built-in radio. Piper caught a blip of one of the eight songs from Diamond City Radio before Blue moved past it. 

“Got it,” she said as she stopped on a channel that came through as a steady pattern of electric beeps. “The pattern’ll get faster the closer we get to the Courser.”

“So we have to put up with that beeping the  _whole time?!”_ Piper asked incredulously. 

“Yeah, papergirl, the whole time. The good news is,” Blue said as she took a couple of big steps to her right. “It looks like the beeping is leading us _away_ from the CIT building.”

“I guess it really is the small victories,” Piper said sarcastically. 

They made their way around the side of what was left of CIT, avoiding the barrels of radioactive waste that had been dropped around the main courtyard, the world around them silent save for the steady beeping of Blue’s Pipboy and its increasing frequency. 

Piper was grateful to be out in the world, distracted by the possibility of imminent death around every corner. She was still grappling heavily with her realization from the night that Blue had come back from the Glowing Sea. She’d let herself get caught up in her own head, her own emotions, and gotten more invested in the idea of her relationship with Blue changing than was really good for her. 

For either of them actually. 

She’d woken up early the following morning. Briefly, she breathed in the scent of the woman next to her: warm and sleepy and still. The sun had barely begun to creep through the skylight above when she carefully extricated herself from the tangle of Blue’s limbs and made her way down the creaking stairs. Nat slept in her little nook behind the printing press as Piper went about putting on her morning coffee. 

She wanted to growl in frustration as she waited for the ancient machine to come alive.

_Why does life have to be so fucking inconvenient?!_

Blue was home and safe and  _in her bed_ , but Piper couldn’t shake that familiar weight she’d been carrying around in her stomach. Granted, it seemed to disappear for a few hours after Blue first hugged her in the market, but after Blue had finally fallen asleep that night, Piper just  _lay there,_ chastising herself for her selfishness, her short sightedness. 

Now, she leaned against the printer, slumping her shoulders and closing her eyes, scrubbing at her face with her hands. 

Unbidden images sprang up in her mind, an alternate universe where the coffee finished brewing and she poured  _two_ mugs and brought them upstairs. Piper and Blue would lay together in bed, sipping their coffee, pretending to read until Piper’s leg brushed Blue’s and the air  _shifted_ and Blue would give her a hungry look and  _pull_ Piper to her and…

“Fuuuuuuuuuck,” Piper growled angrily between her fingers. 

“You told me that’s a bad word,” came Nat’s sleepy voice from behind her.

“You’re right… but sometimes it’s the only word that works.”

So, Piper was grateful for all of the mutants and gunfire that came her way that day, grateful for the nest of raiders they’d had to clear out, grateful for the loud and violent and adrenaline-inducing journey they made together to the top of Greentech Genetics, grateful up until the point that they’d reached the top of the very last staircase and caught sight of a Courser standing with his pistol trained on some captive Gunners. 

“You!” the Courser yelled, stopping its interrogation mid-sentence, recognition coming over its weirdly placid face as its eyes fell on Blue. 

It had moved with unprecedented speed, whipping its pistol in their direction as it simultaneously activated its stealth mode. She and Blue had leapt in opposite directions, but again, Piper was just a  _second too late_ , and felt the beam rip into her abdomen: blue and hot and angry. She fell to the ground, clamping her hands to the wound and curling into herself, blood running slickly between her fingers. 

Her world narrowed in on itself, her vision tunneling as she looked over to Blue. But Blue had  _gone black_ again, in that way that Piper had seen only a few times before. Piper saw her set her jaw and  _charge_ the shimmering air that was the Courser, forgetting that she could  _shoot him with the giant fucking gun in her hand._

And maybe that was the thing that gave her the advantage, the sheer shock and stupidity of the move, because she had hurled herself bodily into the Synth before it could even raise its gun again. She  _pinned_ it to the ground, sitting on its chest as it struggled to get its footing, and brought the butt of her gun down onto its head again and again and again in increasingly wet sounding thuds. 

“Oh, what the fuck!” one of the captive Gunners yelled, seeing the carnage happening a few feet away.

This seemed to bring Blue back to herself. She paused with her gun over her head for a brief moment, letting out a growl before rolling to the side, onto her hands and knees, the pistol clattering to the floor next to her. She stayed there, panting, taking a few ragged breaths before she remembered: “Piper!”

“Still with you, Blue,” Piper answered in a pained whisper as the vault dweller scrambled her way back to the reporter. 

“Show me,” Blue panted. Piper pulled her hands away from the wound that ripped through her about an inch over her hip. She could _see_ the calculations happening behind Blue’s eyes, reaching back to her combat training from over two centuries ago. A muscle was moving quickly in her jaw. “OK… Ok, we can fix this.”

Blue reached into that stupidly huge pack she carried around with her, shuffling aside the gathered detritus that she would inevitably turn into something useful: a typewriter, a ball of yarn, a tin of turpentine. Soon, two familiar looking syringes along with a bundle of bandages emerged from the pack.

Piper exhaled sharply as she felt the needles enter her stomach, just to the right of her belly button. The familiar opiate-induced fuzziness of Med-X followed by the tingly numbness of a Stimpak re-knitting her flesh spread over her, making her brain feel stupid and sluggish. 

“Close one, Blue,” she mumbled.

* * *

“In terms of getting shot in the stomach, I’d say I’m pretty lucky,” Piper said, exhaling her cigarette as she leaned against the wall, her legs stretched out on top of the sleeping bag in front of her. They were bedding down for the night in a top corner office of an abandoned building and she was still coming down from the cocktail of near-death adrenaline and Med-X. A lack of inhibition had overtaken her, the little guilty knot in her stomach untying itself just a bit.

“And yet you celebrate by smoking,” Blue said with a quirked eyebrow. 

“Blue, there’s literally radiation  _in the air around us_ . If I get cancer, it’s not going to be from the occasional cigarette.”

“Why do I feel like our definitions of occasional are not the same?”

“Ok, admittedly there have been more _occasions_ than usual lately,” Piper said as she rolled her eyes. “But life with you adds just the slightest increase in stress.”

“Getting you shot in the stomach only counts as slight?”

“I have to permanently lose appendages before we pass the slight threshold.”

“Duly noted,” Blue said, unrolling her sleeping bag next to Piper’s. 

Piper’s giddy, uninhibited mood abated a bit as she watched her. Sure, Blue had sounded like she was joking, but Piper knew her too well to believe that. She knew Blue blamed herself, that she well and truly felt responsible for what had happened. She felt another of Blue’s classic retreats into herself coming on and wasn’t interested in letting that happen. 

“You know it’s not your fault, right?” 

Blue let out an exasperated sigh as she sat next to Piper, their arms touching down their length. 

“I… I guess… logically, maybe I know that? But, really, you never would have been in the path of a Courser if it weren’t for me.”

“I seem to remember talking about this recently,” Piper said with a look of mock-consideration. “Remember: grown up? Setting my own boundaries? Wanting to be here? Ringing any bells, Blue?”

Blue rolled her eyes. 

“Besides,” Piper continued. “It’s not like I was keeping my nose out of the Institute’s business before I started following you into all of these shenanigans. Who’s to say that I wouldn’t have been gutted by a Courser anyway?”

“You did have a reputation of being somewhat of a shit-stirrer before I even showed up.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“No, no, it’s definitely a good thing, but maybe not in terms of keeping you out of the line of fire.”

“In what terms then?” Piper asked with a smirk.

“Hmmmm?” Blue said, raising her eyebrows and trying to act like she didn’t understand, the steady creep of blush rising into her cheeks contradicting her already weak play. 

“In what terms is it a good thing?” Piper pushed. She suddenly became very much aware of Blue’s proximity to her, of the way that Blue’s hand rested on her own thigh in such a way that her pinky occasionally moved in a little pattern against the side of Piper’s when she tapped her fingers, of the nervous way that Blue’s teeth played with the edge of her scarred lip. 

_That stupidly sexy scar._

“I… uh…,” Blue mumbled as she stared right back at Piper. “I just don’t think you would have been able to keep up with me if you weren’t a bit of a shit-stirrer is all…”

“Is that right?” Piper said with a grin. 

“That’s right,” Blue said, her own smiled matching the goofy grin on the reporter’s face. 

Piper eyed her, crinkling her brow and scrunching her face in the universal way of communicating  _I call bullshit._

_It would be so easy,_ Piper thought then. All it would take is closing that less-than-eight-inch gap between their lips. Piper would run her fingers through that scratchy undercut of Blue’s and pull her closer. Blue would be caught off guard at first, but would catch on quickly, let out a little grunt like the one she does when she stretches in the morning. And Piper would nibble on that stupid bit of scarred lip she was so enamored with. And Blue would forget about anything that came before that moment.

_Jesus, Piper!_ Piper internally chided herself, snapping out of her Med-X assisted fantasy. 

_Imagination is a real son of a bitch sometimes._

“I should probably work on this whole bedrest thing, seeing as I was mortally wounded about two hours ago.”

Blue let a little snort out her nose. 

“It is getting late. Wouldn’t want you to be tired for the walk back tomorrow.”

“I need to be tired like I need another hole in my stomach, am I right?”

“Ugh, Piper! Nooo!” Blue yelled exasperatedly as she climbed into her sleeping bag.

“Too soon?” Piper chuckled to herself. 

* * *

“Hey, uh, Blue?”

“Yeah?”

“Did some people have, like, _a thing_ for scars before the war or is that an adaptation to life in the wasteland? Like everyone has scars, so you gotta find them attractive?”

“What? Why do you ask?”

“No reason.”


	5. Not Good For Me

They arrived in Goodneighbor as the afternoon was winding down the next day. Blue had kept the journey through the city slow and overly cautious, following as many empty alleys as possible. With Piper’s guts having already been torn apart and put back together the previous day, avoiding major conflict seemed to be at the front of her mind.

They’d caught Dr. Amari in the Memory Den’s lab, muttering to herself as she stood over a terminal. 

“Dr. Amari?” Piper asked.

“Well, well, you’re back! Tell me, how was the Glowing Sea? Did you find Virgil?”

“Everybody likes a beach vacation and a radiation bath,” Blue answered. She pulled the Courser chip from her pocket, holding it out for Amari to examine. 

“What is this? I’ve never seen anything like it,” Amari asked, shock spreading across her features.

“Let’s just say that our mutual friend put us on the trail of a Courser,” Piper answered.

“A Courser? You killed a Courser?”

Blue shifted a bit next to Piper. ‘Killed’ was a delicate term for what she had done to that Synth and Piper knew she was embarrassed by her own loss of control. She placed a hand delicately on the back of Blue’s shoulder.

_It’s okay._

“Doc, it’s been a _real_ rough couple of weeks,” Piper said lightly, trying to diffuse the tension she could feel growing in Blue’s shoulder. “Do you think you can decode this hunk of plastic?”

Amari grabbed the chip, turning it delicately between her fingers, considering it from several angles. 

“Listen, I’ve worked on a great number of Synths, more than most people outside of the Institute, but this is beyond my skill.”

Blue deflated next to Piper. She could see it in her posture: all this, just to reach a dead end. 

“There has to be something we can do,” Piper pleaded.

“Hmm,” Amari considered as she walked across the room and shut the door. “There is one option, but we’re moving out of the realm of hard scientific fact and into the world of wild rumor.”

“I’ll take anything you’ve got,” Blue said in a small, hopeful voice.

“There is an… organization operating in the Commonwealth. They’re said to have a direct line to the Synths escaping from the Institute. They’re called the Railroad.”

“The Railroad?” 

“They should be able to help you. I don’t have much to go on, but what I can say is they always have the same phrase tied back to them: Follow the Freedom Trail.”

* * *

Piper was sitting at the bar at the Third Rail, nursing a Nuka Cola while she waited for Blue to finish hawking her wares to Bobbi No-Nose. Despite all of their time traveling together, Piper still couldn’t get over how Blue unfailingly managed to turn the rusty trash she dragged out of the Commonwealth into a hefty pile of caps. It was unbelievably attractive to her. 

_Ugh, just control yourself, Piper_ , she thought as she leaned her chin onto her hands. 

Flirting so shamelessly with Blue the previous night had been the silver lining of the entire Courser situation. Piper had felt warm and tingly and giddy and _so very present_ for each moment of it. And the best part of it was that Blue _did not_ shy away from it. She was a completely, totally, willing participant. 

But Piper found her thoughts circling back to the paths that had become so familiar lately: Blue was  _still grieving_ . And even if she did have  _actual_ feelings for Piper, that grief was fresh and that trauma un-dealt-with. Relationships established in a hail of gunfire and post traumatic stress rarely worked out. 

And how much worse off would Blue be if they fell apart and she found herself alone out here?

No, Piper couldn’t really let herself risk that. 

“I was wondering when you’d drag yourself back in here,” purred Magnolia as she practically  _glided_ into the seat next to Piper. 

“Yeah, well, it’s taken a bit to overcome the shame of my drunken one-liners,” Piper said, sipping her cola. “I’ll be sticking to sugar and caffeine tonight.”

“You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of,” Magnolia laughed. “Like I said, I appreciate the attention.”

The singer’s hand came to rest on Piper’s thigh, her thumb rubbing a  _very_ enticing pattern.

_God give me strength_ .

“Oh, Magnolia,” Piper sighed. “There is _almost_ nothing I would rather do than end up tangled up in bed with you at the end of the night.” She took a frustrated swill from her bottle. “The _problem_ is that I think I’d probably be with someone else in my mind.”

“That dame with the ‘fuck you’ haircut and the haunted look?”

“That dame indeed,” Piper conceded, tapping her nose. “And the frustrating thing is, I _will_ end up in her bed tonight, but the closest I’ll come to _really_ getting what I want out of it is a good cuddle.”

A memory flashed into Piper’s mind: Blue, hair mussed and skin still warm from the sheets, looking down at her, teasing her in her sleep-rasped voice,  _so it was good for you, too?_

“Let me get this straight,” Magnolia said, raising an eyebrow, breaking through Piper’s reverie. “You’re two grown women who share a bed and regularly cuddle but you aren’t fucking? And at least one of you is hot for the other?”

“I know it defies logic, but it’s a complicated situation.”

“How complicated?”

“I’d say  _the most_ complicated.”

“Nothing’s really ever as complicated as it seems.”

Piper rubbed her eyes.

“Her husband was killed in front of her a few months ago  _just as_ her newborn son was kidnapped from his arms. Top that off with the fact that besides me, she’s alone in a world that’s completely new to her, and suddenly a crush starts to look  _really_ unimportant.”

Magnolia pulled a pack of cigarettes from her pocket, offered one to Piper, then took a thoughtful puff after lighting them both.

“Yeah, doll, I’m still not seeing how this is the no-win situation you’ve described it as.”

“Oh yeah?” Piper said as she exhaled a smoky snort from her nose.

“Hear me out,” Magnolia continued. “Has she ever _told_ you that she’s too overcome with grief to move on?”

“I… I mean… the opportunity’s never come up.”

“So you’ve told her what you’re feeling.”

“It’s… I… I just” Piper fumbled.

Magnolia gave her a knowing look and placed a finger to her lips to quiet her.

“It’s sweet that you’re being so delicate here,” Magnolia began.  “It’s obvious that you care about her, but I can tell by the way that you talk about her that whatever is happening between you now isn’t going to be enough for you much longer.”

“I just don’t want her to end up alone,” Piper admitted.

“She could end up alone either way,” Magnolia laughed. “You could take a dumb-dumb bullet to the head tomorrow. If I were you, I’d want to go out knowing I’d let the person I love know just how I felt.”

“It’s not…”

“Whatever you say,” Magnolia said as she stubbed out her cigarette. She grabbed Piper by the chin, gave her a little peck on the lips, then said, “They don’t make ‘em like you anymore, doll,” as she stood to walk back to the stage.

“Thanks,” Piper said with a sad smile. Just a few months ago this conversation with Magnolia would have ended  _very_ differently. She took the last swill from her bottle as she made up her mind: she had to tell Blue what she was feeling, if only because it would confirm that Blue just wasn’t  _there yet_ and curb Piper’s increasingly rampant fantasy life. 

Piper stood from her stool, adjusting her press cap to a jaunty angle while she turned toward the door, the smile fading from her face when she caught sight of Blue, leaning against the wall, her arms crossed protectively over herself, her face looking like ten shades of Piper-could-not-tell-what. 

* * *

Blue wasn’t exactly angry with her but something was different. She hadn’t even _said_ anything about the exchange she’d just witnessed between Piper and Magnolia, just flashed a wan smile Piper’s way once she’d crossed the bar, offering weakly, ”Rexford?”

As they made their way to the hotel, Piper stole sidelong glances at her, searching her mind for an opening line, something to say to cut this tension that she could tell Blue felt but didn’t want to acknowledge. 

_Hey Blue? You know how that situation that looked like maybe I was flirting with someone? Well really I was just talking about how inconveniently smitten I am with your sad mug._

She felt all of the momentum she’d built up from her conversation with Magnolia draining from her with each step. Blue was walking a bit faster than usual, a bit further away than she had been earlier that day. She was disappearing from Piper again and she wanted so badly to stop it from happening. 

Piper had almost arrived at what she wanted to say once they got into the privacy of their room, but Blue’s request of “two rooms, please,” at the hotel desk hit her right in the gut, erasing those thoughts from her mind. 

“Two, Blue?” she asked as the vault dweller dropped some caps on the counter. 

“Yeah, just in case,” she replied as she grabbed the two keys and started toward the stairs. Piper hurried along behind her, grabbing her by the elbow, stopping her, turning her, making her listen.

“There is no ‘just in case’ for me, Blue,” Piper said, trying to get Blue to _look her in the eyes._

“It’s just better this way, Piper,” Blue said, finally meeting them, grimacing slightly, communicating volumes with the creases in her brow. 

Later that night, Piper lay on the bed,  _the bed_ , the first one that she and Blue had ever shared it turned out, playing what the scene with Magnolia must have looked like from Blue’s point of view over and over again in her head, trying to parse out clues to what Blue was thinking. 

_Anger?_

_Jealousy?_

_Betrayal?_

Piper tried not to let her heart lift when she realized that if those  _were_ the emotions Blue was feeling then there was definitely something  _more_ to their relationship than friendship. After all, Blue was making her feel like she’d fucked up, like she’d cheated on this unspoken thing that was between them.

Piper placed a pillow over her face and groaned. This whole thing was beyond frustrating. If Blue would just  _listen_ to her, let her explain exactly what is was she saw… 

_Ugh, but then why am I in trouble in the first place? I didn’t do anything wrong. You can’t cheat on someone who isn’t your girlfriend._

She sent the pillow flying into the opposite wall. 

Time moved, slowly but surely. Piper began to hope that maybe she was worrying over nothing. Maybe this was just going to play out like all of those other nights where they went to bed separately but Blue eventually came knocking at her door. Piper would make a joke about wasting the caps on an extra room just to make a point and Blue would smile her shit-eating little smirk. 

Everything would be  _fine_ .

She trained her ears on the silence around her, listening for the creak of a floor board or the quiet tap of a knuckle on her door. But it wasn’t there. No, something was happening here that wasn’t just going to sort itself out. 

Piper turned to her side, hoping to be taken by a sleep that wouldn’t come for several hours yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tweaked the chapter names/numbers because I realized that I HATED them. 
> 
> Here's a moody playlist that corresponds to the chapter titles if you're interested in that sort of thing: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5DXNfDG3anvTmUvJe2L13k?si=W6zeHMf6QY2jesUH__JiBA  
> I'll be updating it as I update chapters. 
> 
> Oh, and as I'm an American and will be returning home to suffer through family turkey time updates may be a bit sparse over the next week.


	6. Adore

“Don’t forget your lunch!” Piper yelled from her nest of sheets as Nat yelled goodbye downstairs. “I’m not bringing it to you again!”

Blue had never come looking for her that night at the Rexford, nor she had she crept up the stairs last night after they had arrived back in Diamond City _,_ so Piper was spending the morning sulking in her bed alone, trying to come up with a nice way to say ‘I didn’t do anything wrong and _also_ you’re an idiot for taking this out on me’ so that they could put whatever this was behind them. 

When she finally  _did_ work up the courage to head downstairs, she found Blue stretched out on the couch, reading an old issue of Guns & Bullets. Piper had been ready to say a friendly good morning, grab a cup of coffee, and act like a normal human, but something about the sight of Blue, about how she didn’t even  _look up_ when Piper entered the room made her brain snap. 

“Blue, I gotta say it feels like you’re punishing me for something here,” Piper said, shaking her head, leaning back against the wall, crossing her arms over her chest. “And the most infuriating thing is that you won’t even talk to me about it.”

Blue sat up and placed the magazine on the coffee table, sighing as she looked sadly up at the reporter. “I’m not punishing you, Piper.”

“Really, coulda fooled me!” Piper exclaimed as she flung her arms out in exasperation. Blue just continued to look up at her from the couch, rapidly clenching and unclenching her jaw, trying to come up with some response,  _something_ to say. She looked broken and small and so, so lost, and Piper… Piper found that she just wanted to make her feel better. 

“Listen, I’m sorry,” Piper said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I’m just… I’m frustrated and I’m tired and this is probably just way too much for you and I’m sorry.” She turned and headed back upstairs, forgetting the coffee she’d originally been after. She flopped back into her bed, curling onto her side and facing the wall. 

Where did they go from here? Did they silently and angrily wander the wastes together until one day they’re so distracted that they miss something important and one or both of them ends up dead? Piper cringed at the thought. 

Was this the end, then? Was this where she recused herself entirely: let Blue go so that she could stay sharp, even if that meant she had to do it alone? Because as much as she wanted to pretend like it wasn’t the case, Piper knew that something about this fight meant they couldn’t go back to how it had been before. This  _thing_ wouldn’t end without a conversation that shed light on the things she’d been choosing not to acknowledge.

And how  _fucked up_ was it that after all of this time, after all of those honest and unfiltered conversations in the husks of Boston buildings,  _not being able to talk_ was delivering the final blow here? Piper wanted to scream at the irony.

She rolled onto her back. She was stiff and sore and heavy-feeling from staying in bed all morning. She wanted to get up, to run, to shake all of this fatigue from her limbs, but then there was the sound of weight on the staircase moving steadily upwards, of the handle of the door turning, of the floorboards creaking, of the crinkle of sheets as Blue slid into bed next to her, laying on her side to face her. Piper turned her head, catching Blue’s gaze.

“What are we doing here, Blue,” Piper finally said, tiredly, defeatedly.

Blue considered her for a moment, her breath coming fast, before reaching her hand up to cup Piper’s cheek.

“I don’t know,” was all she said.

Then, with Piper’s eyes growing slightly wider in surprise and excitement and disbelief, Blue steadily closed the distance between their lips. It was deliberate and measured and  _painfully_ slow, but finally,  _finally,_ they met. 

For a brief moment Piper’s brain protested -  _no, no, no, not without a conversation first -_ but then Blue’s fingers laced through her hair and rational thought was relegated to the back of her mind. A little breathy noise escaped her throat at the feeling: the tingly, electric buzz flowing down her body from that touch, and Blue smiled,  _actually smiled_ , against her lips for a second before taking Piper’s lower lip into her mouth, tugging and biting and sucking gently. 

Piper’s hand moved to Blue’s hip, gently  _pulling_ her, asking her, begging her:  _closer, come closer,_ and Blue  _listened_ and turned and lay half on top of her. 

They moved faster then, forgetting all of the reasons this was  _not the best way to do this_ , becoming all lips and tongues and heavy breathing. Piper’s hand worked its way up under Blue’s shirt, resting on the small of her back, finding skin hot and soft and slightly slick with sweat, and Blue exhaled heavily and shifted and nosed her way down Piper’s jawline, finding that spot on her neck that Piper had mentioned  _once,_ months ago, in a light-hearted late-night story about a former flame. Back before anything like this had even crossed her mind. 

_How long has she been thinking about doing this to that spot?_ she wondered to herself briefly, the feeling of Blue’s teeth on her skin making her  _squirm_ .

She moaned gently, quietly, before hitching in another breath and moving her hands to Blue’s head, forcing her back to her lips. Piper ran her tongue over that  _stupid scar_ that had been driving her crazy for weeks now and Blue let out that satisfied little moan just as Piper had always imagined she would. 

Much more would have happened, then, but just as Blue was shifting again, her thigh coming to rest _between_ Piper’s legs, just as she was _pressing against_ her, just as Piper’s hands began moving hungrily to lift Blue’s shirt over her head, the _bang_ of the front door stopped them, Nat’s innocent, unknowing voice calling upstairs, “I forgot my lunch!”

They stayed there, still, breathing heavily, listening to the muted sounds of Piper’s sister rattling through the house, running to the kitchen, rummaging through the shelves before tossing a “see you later” up at them as the door shut with a _slam_. Gone, just as quickly as she’d come in.

Blue lay top of Piper, propped on her arms, smiling Piper’s favorite little triumphant smirk down at her. 

“I’m going to kill her,” Piper growled. 


	7. Chateau Lobby #4

Piper sat on the rusted patio chair she’d dragged onto the roof outside of her bedroom, surveying the bustling market below her while biting at her cuticles. She’d recently made a promise to a certain vault dweller to cut back on her stress-management-through-Grey-Tortoise habit and intended to keep it - no matter how much havoc it wreaked on her nails - because now,  _now_ there wasn’t really any hiding it from said vault dweller. 

Piper smiled to herself at the thought.

Sure, Nat’s sudden reappearance in the house a few days previously had quickly pumped the brakes on the moment they were having upstairs, stopping their forward momentum as they quickly rounded second, but it hadn’t  _totally_ ruined it.

Piper had promised bodily harm to her sister and Blue had laughed, leaning to one side and propping her face in one hand as she looked down at her. Piper had looked unabashedly back up at her: cheeks flushed, lids heavy, staring openly, smiling stupidly at the woman on top of her.

“What are you smiling at, papergirl?”

“I guess I didn’t realize you  _liked_ women,” Piper teased, quirking an eyebrow. 

“I don’t discriminate,” Blue tossed back, rolling her eyes, laughing through her nose. Piper had leaned up then, reconnecting her lips with Blue’s quickly before laying on her back again. She’d almost been afraid that Blue wouldn’t  _let_ her kiss her again, like now that the moment had passed she would come to her senses, remember she was angry, and go back to sulking on the couch. It had been a testing of the waters:  _is this still ok?_

But Blue had smirked down at her, gaze soft, eyes bright, and brought her hand back to Piper’s cheek. She’d kissed her then; not desperately or hungrily like before, but gently, deeply, tenderly. Then they’d just  _slept_ , for hours, napping away any hope of a productive day, making up for all of the missed hours over the previous nights, until Nat had come home looking for dinner.

In the following days, they hadn’t again worked up to the fever pitch they’d reached before, but they  _had_ found times where they just  _couldn’t stop_ themselves from pulling the other in. Like when Piper had watched Blue hand Nat the lunch she’d packed for her as the girl headed out for school. The door had barely shut before Blue found herself  _pressed_ against it, Piper’s lips crashing into hers because it  _was just too fucking cute for her to handle._ Or when Piper had been trying to fix the printer, swearing an impressive swarm of profanity while trying to reach the paper jam deep in its bowels. Blue had walked wordlessly up to her, ignoring the streaks of ink across her cheeks, pulling her in.

“Blue, I gotta fix this fucking thing,” Piper had protested weakly.

“Too bad,” she said, lifting her up, placing her on the metal paper tray with surprisingly little effort.

_So why are you up here eating your fingers?_ Piper thought from her perch on the roof.

While it was true that at surface level she was  _really pleased_ with the new pastime open to the two of them, Piper was never one to be satisfied with the surface level. She could ignore the niggling thoughts that popped up in her mind  _most_ of the time but there was no escaping the fact that they still  _hadn’t talked_ about  _any_ of it: not their feelings, not what it meant, not where it was going. Granted, most couples didn’t talk about any of that in the fledgling days of their relationship, but their circumstances were different than  _most_ couples. 

_Are we even a couple?_ ‘Couple’ didn’t seem to quite fit what they were to each other, anyway.

She bit off a hang nail a  _bit_ too aggressively, causing blood to bubble up over the tiny, stinging hole she’d created.

“Fuck,” she swore, poking the wound with her thumb as the door behind her opened, Blue’s boots  _clomping_ their way across the corrugated metal. 

“Well, grilling the guards was a bust,” Blue huffed as she sat at Piper’s feet, leaning against the side of reporter’s legs while dangling her own over the edge of the roof. “No one could give me anything less vague than ‘Follow the Freedom Trail’.” Piper placed her hand on the top of Blue’s head and ran her fingers through her hair. 

“Ok, then we strap ourselves down with as much ammunition as possible and head to Boston Common.”

“But that’s thing, Pipes, I remember following it for an eighth grade field trip. It loops up between Bunker Hill and the USS Constitution. I asked around. Bunker Hill’s a trading post and the Constitution is overrun by robots or something.”

“Were you expecting a big sign that says ‘RAILROAD HERE’ in big red letters?” she laughed as Blue pinched the back of her calf. “It’s a clandestine group; I’m guessing there’s going to be a fair amount of digging and skullduggery required to find them.”

“Ugh,” Blue sighed, burying her face against Piper’s leg. “Could just one thing be simple?”

“Don’t I wish it,” Piper said, wistfully. “But guess what, the truth doesn’t stay hidden for long.”


	8. Something

They’d started off early on the morning they had headed toward the Freedom Trail, reaching Boston Common while the sun was still shining weakly just near the horizon. 

“Boston Common,” Piper had said, shaking her head. “How is it that I always end up following you into places people usually don’t come back from?”

“I’d chalk it up to my devilish good looks and winning personality.”

“And probably your humility.”

They’d quickly found the start of the trail, then: a hand-painted piece of plywood with ‘at journey’s end follow freedom’s lantern’ slapped onto the front of it and an ancient bronze trail marker set into the concrete. 

“Oh fun,” Blue had said sarcastically, crouching down to examine the paint on the marker. “A code. Insurance against just skipping to the end and waltzing in.”

“Digging and skullduggery, remember,” Piper replied, placing a quick kiss on Blue’s cheek. “We got this.”

Blue crinkled her nose and smiled, shaking her head as they set off.

It was slow going, making their way along the constant switchbacks of the trail as it looped past ghouls and mutants and raiders, so that by the time they caught sight of the lantern inscribed on the front of the Old North Church their energy was running thin. 

There had been more ghouls hiding amongst the ruined pews, perking up at the sound of their footfalls, and Piper had watched Blue: her pistol extended in front of her, a look of intense concentration on her face. She had brought them down so quickly, almost  _elegantly_ . Despite the long day, the fatigue, the  _annoyance_ at being forced to jump through all of these hoops, she was still so unfazed by the danger, so  _fucking capable_ . Piper felt her stomach somersault when Blue lowered her weapon and turned to her, cocky grin on her face like she  _knew_ that Piper was thinking all sorts of wild and quixotic thoughts about her.

They descended into the crypts, dispatching more ghouls, growing more weary. When they finally made it to the brick wall with a trail marker mounted on it, Blue checked her Pipboy and began piecing together the code they’d collected throughout the day.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Blue said, exasperatedly.

“What is it?”

“The super secret code to the super secret Railroad… is ‘RAILROAD’” She shook her head, a rueful grin spreading across her face. “Guess I wasn’t too far off in expecting a giant sign with ‘RAILROAD HERE’ painted on it.”

* * *

Their reputation had preceded them, it turned out, and that coupled with Blue’s uncanny ability to smooth talk her way out of any situation stayed the minigun they had been greeted with.

Desdemona, the stoic leader of the ring of ragtag revolutionaries, had been damn near ready to toss them back out of the rundown church until Deacon had shown up to laud and  _confirm_ Blue’s efforts in the Commonwealth. And it  _definitely_ didn’t hurt that the vault dweller was in possession of a Courser chip. 

They’d been lead through the main door, into the musty, close space that served as the headquarters to Boston’s worst kept secret, and Piper found herself stuck on the fact that the most remarkable thing about the place was how _unremarkable_ it really was. Everything about it seemed temporary, transient. Hell, they hadn’t even made the effort to fully clear the place of all of its crumbling burial vaults (but, she noticed with a wry smile, someone had taken the time to put one of them to use as a pantry). 

When it came down it, it really wasn’t much more than a few rooms and a hallway crowded with dingy mattresses that was keeping the Railroad going.

She and Blue were curled up together on one of those mattresses now, the silence of the headquarters around them broken occasionally by someone’s sleepy grunt or the squeak of a door hinge as an agent left to complete a dead drop or other clandestine mission. 

For all intents and purposes, things were going  _very well,_ Piper thought _._ Tinker Tom, the eccentric tech czar of the place had made short work of decoding the chip and now they not only had the information they needed, but also a new, very powerful ally to help them infiltrate the Institute. They were gaining momentum in the search for Shaun.

Yet here Piper was, lying awake. Ruminating. Brooding. 

It was becoming a common habit for her.

After the day’s events had played themselves out, after Desdemona had aggressively debriefed Blue on her search thus far, she’d offered them the hospitality of the Railroad, such as it was, and Blue had been quick to accept. 

The distinct lack of privacy had Piper convinced that she’d be sleeping alone that night. After all, the closest they’d ever come to a public display of affection had been that hug they’d shared when Blue had finally come back from the Glowing Sea, before there really was any  _affection_ to display. She’d been thrown for a loop when Blue had sat on the mattress next to her. 

“Can you help me with these?” Blue had asked, indicating her armor. 

Piper had obliged then, her deft fingers working the straps and buckles, the metal pieces slowly falling away under her work. Once she’d finished, Blue had lain down and pulled Piper along, taking her in her arms and kissing her forehead, her lips, softly, sweetly, before falling easily to sleep. 

In all honesty, the entire interaction drove Piper crazy.

Sure, there was nothing  _overtly_ sexy about taking the armor off of your pseudo-girlfriend, but Piper couldn’t stop the tension, the tight coil winding low in her belly when she thought about what it would be like to remove more of Blue’s clothing. 

Because as much as she enjoyed their recent bout of intense make out sessions, the lack of sexual release was starting to weigh on her. 

They’d been close that first time, and the way Blue’s thigh fell so easily between her legs, the way she’d naturally applied  _just_ the right amount of pressure, had Piper convinced that it wasn’t a matter of Blue being inexperienced with women. Blue  _obviously_ knew what she was doing and had been  _willing_ to do it. In that moment, at least. 

But now time had passed and they’d had more private moments and Blue had definitely initiated  _most_ of them but she’d never made as open of an effort towards initiating sex again. In some ways, it was remarkable to Piper that Blue had enough self-discipline to pull back at all. 

Mostly, though, it just made her second guess what was  _actually happening_ between them.

Maybe this was purely about physical comfort for Blue and Nat’s interruption had snapped her out of a hormone-driven, impulsive decision that she didn’t  _actually_ want to make. What if it wasn’t self-discipline that pulled Blue back, but a lack of desire to move forward?

Piper’s stomach clenched at the thought.

If that was true, if Blue didn’t feel the constant ache to be close to her, the simultaneous  _gush_ and  _squeeze_ of her heart when she did something cute or brave or clever, then everything that Piper was feeling now was incredibly inconvenient. 

_But then how do you explain this?_ Piper thought to herself, turning to the fact that they were here, in a room full of people (albeit sleeping people), in each other’s arms; the fact that Blue had initiated it, had kissed her, had intertwined their fingers. Blue hadn’t given a second thought to other people seeing something _tender_ and _romantic_ between them. 

Piper wanted to shake her awake, to tell her how she felt, how Blue was  _making_ her feel, how she wanted her,  _all of her_ , and all of this dancing around the subject was just a waste of god damn time. 

She wanted to, but she wouldn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please enjoy the thinly veiled s y m b o l i s m of Blue asking Piper to help remove her armor.
> 
> I couldn't resist.


	9. Follow My Girl

Blue was procrastinating, Piper knew. They had left the Railroad headquarters four days ago and she still hadn’t made concrete plans to head back to Virgil in the Glowing Sea. It had been nice, taking a few days to not get shot at, but the impermanence of the situation (and the idea of _crossing the Sea again)_ made it difficult for either of them to truly relax.

Piper  _also_ knew that Blue was holding something back from her. It was there, hiding in the weird tension of the silences between them that had felt so comfortable before. Those pauses were pregnant now, bursting, clawing for attention. But Blue didn’t seem to  _want_ to acknowledge them.

And, in a way, neither did Piper. 

She couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever Blue was thinking was decidedly negative and there were really only two options if that was the case: Blue had either decided to leave Piper behind again or she wanted to call off whatever was happening between them. And since Blue had  _pretty much_ been more affectionate than ever, her imminent departure was really the only option.

So finally, on the morning of the fifth day, Piper began working up her courage.

They were sitting on the couch, reading, sipping coffee, Blue’s hand resting casually on Piper’s thigh. It was comfortable and home-y and so fucking  _nice_ and Piper knew that what she was about to say was probably going to ruin all of that.

“You’re planning on leaving me behind again, aren’t you?” Piper said. 

Blue looked up. She looked sad and guilty and concerned all at once. 

“I can’t keep anything from you, can I?” she replied, attempting a sad smile.

“God dammit, Blue! I mean, we’ve already been through this. I  _want_ to be there.  _You_ want me to be there.”

“You don’t get it, Piper. You don’t know what it’s like. It’s awful and dangerous and--”

“We do a dozen dangerous things every day. That’s not a good enough excuse.”

Blue exhaled through her nose, her hand rubbing her temples.

“Can we not do this?” Blue asked, reaching for Piper’s hand. “Can’t we just-”

“No,” Piper interrupted. “We can’t. I _can’t_. I can’t just twiddle my thumbs here for weeks, wondering if you’re never going to come back. Do you understand what that’s like?”

“Yeah, Piper, I think I do fucking understand what it’s like to wonder if you’re ever going to see someone again!” Blue was angry now, her breath coming heavy and fast, her jaw clenching. She stood then, crossing her arms and walking to the other side of the room, shaking her head.

“Fuck, Blue, that’s-”

“I’ve got to take a walk,” Blue said abruptly. “I can’t do this right now.”

“Blue-”

But she was already shutting the door behind her.

* * *

Piper was alone now. Nat had come home for a bit but then Nina had come looking for her, inviting her to stay over, and in all honesty, Piper was grateful she was gone. And yeah, she felt terrible for thinking it but it didn’t make it any less true. She wanted to be alone, to wallow, to think about all of the various ways that life in the Wasteland was unfair. So she was back at her perch on the roof, chain smoking and staring out at the darkened stands. 

She took a sharp drag, relishing the smoke in her lungs. 

She was being overly dramatic, she knew. This was the sort of defiant thing a teenager would have done in some poorly-written prewar book. It was maudlin and immature but that didn’t stop her. 

She didn’t bother stubbing out her cigarette when she saw Blue coming down the steps toward the entrance to the Publick, either, or when she heard the door open behind her, or when Blue crouched in front of her. 

“How was your walk?” Piper asked, unable to keep the twinge of sarcasm from her voice. She took another drag, exhaling ostentatiously through her nose. 

Blue cocked her head to the side, considering her, her eyes moving intentionally over her face. 

“Sometimes you are so fucking beautiful that I can’t stand it,” she finally said. She reached out, taking Piper’s cigarette between her fingers and stubbing it out in the ashtray. 

“Don’t change the subject,” Piper said, despite the blush that was spreading over her freckled cheeks. 

“I’m sorry I left,” Blue said, and she meant it. It was clear, there on her face, in the small crease between her eyebrows. “I just… needed space to think… before I said anything stupid.”

“And what sorts of stupid things were you thinking of saying?”

“The whole point of the walk was to  _not_ say those stupid things to you.”

“What if those stupid things were true things?”

“Pipes, nothing I say when I’m angry is true.”

Her hands came to rest on the tops of Piper’s thighs as she moved closer, coming to her knees. She looked up at the reporter, her face set in some unreadable expression.

“Then what  _do_ you want to say, Blue?”

Blue took a breath, her eyes moving to the side as if the answer was somewhere over Piper’s shoulder. 

“I don’t know how to say all of the things I want to say.”

“How about we start with some of the things, then,” Piper said. She was being antagonistic, she knew, but the _weight_ of the last few hours (no, the last few _weeks_ or maybe even _months)_ was sitting heavily inside her chest. She was tightly wound and worn down and _so tired_ of second guessing her actions and thoughts and feelings.

“I don’t know how to separate everything I feel for you from everything else I have swirling around my head,” Blue admitted before setting her jaw and looking Piper in the eyes again. “Because I loved Nate, Pipes. I really fucking loved him. And I know that’s probably a really shitty thing to say to you but I still carry him around with me like a giant gaping hole in my chest. All of the time.”

Piper opened her mouth to say something but Blue shook her head before continuing. 

“But you came along and you  _make me feel better,_ Piper. And this thing between us just keeps feeling bigger and bigger to me… and I want that. I really do. But my wires get crossed because I also feel  _so_ guilty for even feeling these things for you in the first place.”

Blue reached up and took Piper’s face in her hands and pressed the foreheads together, in that same way they had used to tell each other things they couldn’t in the past. 

“I  _cannot_ lose you, too. I wouldn’t survive it,” Blue said quietly. 

“Blue-” Piper began, but Blue pulled Piper’s mouth to hers then, kissing her deeply, pulling her closer. 

“Fuck, I need you so much, Piper,” Blue said as she pulled back for a moment,  _drinking in_ the woman before her. 

“I need you, too, Blue,” Piper said, her pulse rising, her breath coming faster. She pulled Blue’s mouth to hers now, burying her fingers in her hair, moaning softly as she felt Blue’s tongue brush against hers. Blue’s arms wrapped around her waist, trying to pull their bodies closer together, but the angle was wrong and Blue’s knees could only hold her up on the corrugated metal for so long before they began to hurt. 

“Where’s Nat?” Blue asked as they broke apart, her eyes searching Piper’s face hungrily.

“Nina’s. For the night,” Piper managed to get out between breaths.

“Inside,” Blue growled as she stood, pulling Piper along with her toward the door. 

* * *

They had crashed onto the bed together, Piper coming to land on top of Blue this time, straddling her hips, their fingers working furiously on the buttons of her coat. They fumbled and faltered in their haste and excitement but eventually Piper was able to whip it off behind her, letting it fall in a heap on the floor. She bent at the waist, cradling Blue’s face, pulling it to hers as Blue’s hands came to rest on her thighs. Her teeth found Blue’s lower lip, biting gently, tugging slightly, eliciting a sharp inhale from the woman beneath her. She smiled against Blue’s mouth, enjoying that feeling: the fact that  _she_ was making that sound come out of her.  _Her_ Blue.

Blue’s hands began to move then, making their way up her body, fingers sliding under the fabric of her shirt to rest on her stomach. Piper felt that familiar tight coil winding low in her belly, the heat spreading across her skin at the way Blue’s body  _arched_ under hers,  _searching_ for more contact. She pulled her face back a bit, enough to let their noses brush against each other as she breathed in, her thumb moving to stroke Blue’s lower lip. 

“Hey, papergirl,” Blue said with a smile before leaning up to kiss her.

Gently, almost shyly, she took the hem of Piper’s shirt in her hands, pushing it slightly up the reporter’s torso,  _asking_ ,  _wondering,_ and Piper  _answered,_ pulling it off, tossing it to the floor to join her coat. Her fingers moved to Blue’s flannel, slowly working her way down the row of buttons, grinning down as Blue  _took her in._

“You’re beautiful,” Blue said, reverentially, earnestly, softly. 

“Right back atcha, doll.” 

With a chuckle, Blue grabbed her by the hips, spinning her, switching their positions, removing her own top, stretching across Piper’s smaller frame.

Here they were again, Piper thought, like that very first time they’d done this, but this time Blue’s thigh moved between her legs and  _pressed_ and her mouth found that spot on her neck and there were  _no interruptions._ And Piper moaned at the feeling, at the weigh of Blue’s body moving  _just so_ against her, at the way Blue’s calloused hand worked its way up to her breast,  _squeezing_ gently. 

“Fuck, Blue…” she managed to get out, raspy and hoarse. 

“God, I want you so badly, Piper,” Blue said against her neck. 

“Show me.”

Blue growled then, moving down Piper’s body, her hands coming to the button of her jeans. She stood and pulled them off and stared down at Piper, flushed and panting and  _nearly naked_ before her, before removing her own. 

She was on top of Piper again, her mouth moving from lips to jaw to neck as her hand grabbed her by the hip,  _pulling_ her against her leg. In a steady rocking motion, she  _ground_ against the smaller woman: nipping, sucking, teasing with her lips and tongue and teeth. Piper’s breath came sharp and heavy, her attempts to stifle her grunts and moans failing. 

Blue moved again, scooting down Piper’s body, taking one of her nipples in her mouth and Piper  _arched_ and  _moaned_ as she felt Blue’s even teeth  _scrape_ over her sensitive skin.

She was  _wet_ now. Aching, throbbing for contact. And when Blue’s hand  _finally_ slipped under the waistband of her panties, fingers finding her clit, moving in gentle circles, she gasped at the contact. 

“Fuck… yeah, Blue. Like that,” she said breathlessly. She could feel the heat building low in her belly, her legs twitching  _each time_ Blue’s fingers grazed over the  _one_ perfect spot. 

But then Blue’s hand was gone from her, and Piper’s muddled brain couldn’t figure out what was happening until she felt Blue’s weight moving down her body, hooking fingers through her waistband, sliding her panties down her legs. Blue settled between them then, kissing her way teasingly along the inside of Piper’s thighs. 

Piper watched as Blue’s face moved lower, felt Blue’s tongue brush gently against her clit, once, then again. 

It didn’t take long after that, minutes maybe, of Blue’s mouth on her, of Blue’s fingers entering her and pumping  _in_ and slightly  _up_ and  _out_ again. She felt it build, slowly at first, then faster and faster until it spread through her limbs and she came with her fingers buried in Blue’s hair.

Blue had that cocky grin on her face when she climbed back up, after Piper had come down, after she’d kissed along her thighs again. And Piper smiled back, heart feeling lighter than it had in months, before she pulled her in for another kiss. 

“Your turn,” she growled at the vault dweller. 


	10. Fast Blood

“Tastes like tinfoil,” Piper said, breaking the quiet around them.

They’d passed the threshold of the Sea a little over a half hour ago and Piper had noticed the subtle changes in the air around them grow more and more defined: the metal taste in her mouth, the creeping feeling of phantom sensation crawling over her skin. There one moment, gone the next, then back again.

“Over two hundred years and you can still feel all those rogue particles flying through you,” Blue replied contemplatively. Piper knew she was picturing it, that chain reaction that had occurred here, tearing apart the earth beneath it. The shuddering  _flash/bang_ of the world ending around her. 

They walked in silence for a long while. 

Blue was pulling her famous disappearing act on her, the one where she just slowly retreated for minutes or hours or maybe even days, where she was quiet and distant and  _almost-but-not-quite_ cold _._ And Piper couldn’t blame her, really. In the months following her father’s murder she’d sometimes done the same thing. Knowing that she had Nat to take care of was the only thing that kept her going. Blue had the added horror of losing the child that had depended on her to cope with on top of all of that.

She understood. She  _got it._ That hadn’t stopped her from hoping that maybe now, after  _everything,_ this sort of thing wouldn’t happen anymore.

_Yeah, right, papergirl, since when has sex made anything less complicated?_

It had made _some_ things less complicated, though. For one, Piper had stopped second guessing her feelings. Blue’s, too. In the few days since their rapid cycle fight-slash-reconciliation they had fallen into step with one another, the _will-they-won’t-they_ tension melting away because they _had_ _(_ a few times now). 

She smiled to herself. 

That part was good. No, it was  _great,_ actually. 

She’d always known Blue was easily consumed by her emotions. She’d seen it happen: how she could careen with reckless abandon toward a goal, both literally and figuratively. But to be on the receiving end of that focus… well… that was something she’d never quite experienced with someone else. It made her breath catch just to  _think_ about it. 

Blue didn’t fight her about coming along to the Glowing Sea again, either. 

They had been lying in bed afterward that first time, drifting towards sleep, naked bodies intertwined, Blue’s finger’s running lightly up her back when Piper had said: “I hope you know that there’s definitely no leaving me behind now.”

“And here I was planning to flee in the night.”

Piper bit her on the shoulder for that.

“Ow-” Blue chuckled. “No, I know. It was probably stupid to think I could have in the first place.”

“Oh look, she’s learning,” Piper teased.

They’d spent the next few days packing, preparing, and in between they let themselves be consumed by chemistry and hormones because they knew that moving forward those opportunities would be few and far between. Then they’d left and it seemed like every step closer to the Sea had caused Blue to become quieter, to withdraw more.

It was hard for Piper: hard to see her hurting, hard to not take it _personally,_ hard to justify these two versions of Blue (the loving, tender one that laughed easily with the quiet, sulky one that seemed impossible to reach). 

And it probably hurt most to know that the only thing that would really help with any of this was time.

* * *

Blue had been the first to notice the radiation storm barreling toward them over the horizon.

It was alive: a roiling, angry, green monster spewing thunder and lightning down on the world below it.

“We probably want to find a place to wait that out,” Blue said, pointing Piper’s attention to it.

“Yeah, I don’t think we’d make pretty ghouls,” Piper replied. 

“You might be able to pull it off.”

“Oh really?” Piper laughed.

“Yeah, no nose, no hair. I could see that working for me in a big way.”

“Remind me to keep an eye on you around Bobbi No-Nose from now on.”

Blue grinned (a welcome sight for Piper after the relative silence of the journey thus far) and began looking around.

“I’m guessing we have about twenty minutes before it’s on top of us,” Blue said. “Problem is, there’s never a bunker around when you need one.” She was flipping the switch on her Pipboy, a muscle working anxiously in her jaw.

Piper looked around. Nothing but scorched tarmac and twisted trees as far as she could see. She began calculating, mentally counting the number of doses of RadAway left in their packs and weighing how long they could last in open radiation.

_Not long._

“There’s a factory near here. I passed it on my way through last time,” Blue said as she finished with her Pipboy and removed her pack, digging through the contents. Soon she found what she was looking for and tossed the Rad-X over to Piper. “The bad news is that we’re looking at at least thirty minutes of exposure, even if we run.”

Piper opened the bottle, tapped out two pills and swallowed them dryly.

“Looks like your ghoul fantasies may come true after all, Blue,” Piper said as she tossed the bottle back and Blue slipped them back into the pack without taking any. “Uh, Blue? Forgetting something?”

“We don’t have _that_ many left. You may need them.” Blue said. “I’ll be fine.”

“ _Blue,”_ Piper sighed, walking over to her. “I would _love_ it if you had just a _slightly_ stronger sense of self preservation.”

She reached into the pack, pulled out the bottle, shook out the pills and pushed them against Blue’s lips. She held them there, waiting out Blue’s moment of resistance before letting them drop onto her tongue. 

“Besides,” Piper said, kissing the tip of her nose. ”I like your face the way it is.”

They moved quickly then, half jogging, half walking, all the while glancing up at the sky as it grew more and more forbidding. They grew tense and anxious and quiet as the sun was slowly eclipsed by the storm, a premature darkness turning the scenery around them even more sinister. Soon the wind around them roared in an electric sort of bellow. 

“Not far,” Blue kept saying. “Not far now.”

The factory was a half-sunk, low concrete building that came into view just as Piper was beginning to feel her double dose of Rad-X wear thin. It was back: that acrid taste on the back of her tongue, stronger than before.

When they arrived, Blue  _yanked_ the door, once, twice, three times before the rust of a few centuries gave way and the doorway stood open like a gaping mouth, the darkness inside awaiting to swallow them whole.


End file.
